How justice eludes Wayanad farmer's sit-in, 9 years on

Wayanad: K K James celebrated Onam of 2023 as usual, alone in his makeshift hut in front of the Wayanad civil station.

It was James' ninth consecutive Onam celebrated in the hut in Kalpetta, the venue of the sit-in which he had launched alongside his wife Treesa on the Independence Day of 2015.

The family is staging the protest against what they call the illegal takeover of 12 acres janmam ( a form of hereditary property right) patta land by the forest department. James' father-in-law Kanjirathinal George owned this land back in 1977. The agitation completed nine years and sixteen days on August 15, 2023. 

James has weathered scorching summers, the deluge of 2018 that immersed a major part of the state, and the coronavirus outbreak that transformed the entire world. So gritty is the man who still has full faith in the jurisprudence of the land. 

Though his frail body is now troubled by ailments, James is a regular at the entrance of the civil station, greeting the officials every day. 

Nestled at the main entrance of the collectorate, the ramshackle hut, held together by advertisement banners, abandoned tarpaulin sheets and cutouts, no doubt poses a question to the system of governance in the state.  

This prolonged battle for justice has its origin in 1967, when George and his brother Jose bought the 12 acres of Janmam patta land in 1967 in the Kanjirangad village of Wayanad's Thondarnad. 

In 1977, the forest department attempted to evict the farmers claiming the department had notified the land under the Kerala Private Forest Vesting and Assignment Act. As the move was illegal, the forest tribunal in a verdict in 1978 reinstated the right of the farmer over the land. But later in 1985, forest officials fabricated evidence and won the case, alleged James. 

"Even before my father-in-law George came to know about the verdict someone represented him at the High Court with fake signatures and ensured his defeat in the appeal," claimed James. 

As all the legal wrangles failed to expose the fabrication of evidence, the family sought the help of political parties of all hues further on. In those days of 'ignorance', running a case against the state was a costly as well as strenuous affair.

“Initially it was the CPM leader late Mathayi Chacko and former Sulthan Bathery MLA P Krishnaprasad, leader of All India Kisan Sabha, who had supported us,” said James.  “Thanks to their effort, the issue grabbed media attention and the state legislature began exploring means to fix the problem," he said. 

Meanwhile, James had gathered all documents to prove the claim of the family under the Right To Information Act. 

“This Onam was special to me as there was a serious intervention from the State Human Rights Commission, which directed the government to come out of its slumber in bringing out a legally binding solution,” said James.

Judicial member of the panel K Baijunath, acting chairman of the panel, had directed the state government to explore possibilities to cancel the verdict of the Forest Tribunal (1985) in the case - OA 356/76. In the order to the chief secretary and district collector, the commission said that from the documents accessed by the panel “it has been proved that the lapses of the forest officials were the root cause for the ordeals faced by the family.” “The Kanjirathinal family has been facing absolute injustice throughout the years,” the panel concluded in its 15-page order dated July 31.     

“It is a ray of hope,” said James.  

James had met four chief ministers; all of them assured him of support, realising the genuineness of the case. Former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan visited the hut in front of the collectorate twice. Former Chief Minister late Oommen Chandy, during his second term, had convened a meeting of the family members, human rights activists, and top officials at Thiruvananthapuram, chairing the meeting himself, discussing the issue. 

At the end of the meeting, Oommen Chandy himself had directed K Mara Pandyan, then secretary in the ministry of law who was also present in the meeting, to find a legal solution through the High Court, but all in vain. Most recently, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan attempted many times, during both his terms including the ongoing, to settle the issue through an out-of-the-court settlement providing compensation to the family. 

"We will fight for justice till the last person of the family is alive,” James said, adding that the forest department had wrecked the family: "First, they claimed that our property was notified as forest land, hooking us into prolonged legal procedures."

When the family had countered the claims of the forest department with documentary evidence exposing how the department had misled the forest minister and state legislature with fabricated documents, the department on October 21, 2013, brought another notification vesting the land, that too after the death of George, the owner of the land. “George was not the landlord but a poor farmer who had purchased the land along with his brother Jose in 1967 from the landlord, much before the law came into effect,” James said. 

According to James, by including the land in the notified list, the then-forest officials had an agenda to exempt another 100 acres of land, enjoyed by some influential planters at a distant part of Wayanad. 

“There were attempts by the district administration to sideline me dealing directly with other family members, as I am not the direct heir; I have been insisting at either returning the same land or a price that decided by us; since the beginning, I had never agreed to a compromise as I was always sure that justice is on our side,” he added.

However, the majority of members of the family refused to fall in line as they demanded the same land or its market price as suggested by them.    

In 2005, the All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ arm of the CPM, offered help and started an indefinite agitation in front of the collectorate along with the late Kanjirathinal George and his family. Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan, visited the family and assured them that the state would intervene. Oommen Chandy was the chief minister back then.  However, AIKS called off the agitation stating that the then forest minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan had assured a speedy solution. Nothing transpired.

Later V S Achuthanandan was sworn in as chief minister. P Krishnaprasad, the crusader of the agitation, had become a legislative member from Wayanad. 

“They had jumped into action without clearing the legal wrangles,” said James.  “All of a sudden an order was issued in the first cabinet itself reinstating the land to the farmer.  But the officials in the revenue department either by ignorance or deliberately, failed to correct the mistakes in the patta number, citing the same faulty number of attached forest land in the new order. Again this led to another legal battle as an NGO approached the High Court alleging that the government was granting forest land to an encroacher. 

“It was undue haste of the revenue department that resulted in this legal stand-off, as there were no steps adopted by the government to sort out the issue,” James added. 

On June 13, 2008, the High Court stayed the government order of restoring the land to the farmer; on June 14, the forest department evicted the family from the house.

 “We were thrown out to the street, aged parents were manhandled and abused, all citing the High Court order, even as the same Achuthanandan ruled the state,” James recalled. 

“I ran pillar to post to save our home, but no party leaders or ministers came to my help,” said James, adding that “our cause became a tool for the party for an image makeover why we were still on the streets.

Since then all the family members scattered. Unable to withstand the shock, Kanjirathinal George, the 'landlord' died in an orphanage, his wife died in a mental asylum, his youngest daughter sought refuge in a convent and the elder son went away in search of a job. 

Treesa, the elder daughter of the family who is James' wife keeps up the struggle alongside him.       

James also alleged there was a high-level intervention to slow pedal the procedures as many forest and revenue officials who had colluded in the crime by fabricating documents would be in trouble if justice was served.  “They wanted an out-of-court settlement by the government giving us a paltry sum and saving them from paying hefty fines for their fault, denying us justice,” he said.  

Though six collectors attempted during their respective tenures to sort the issue, all were humbled as they were unable to undo the vicious knots in the last four decades or so.

Almost all district collectors kept a distance from him, said James, except Kesavendra Kumar who treated him as a fellow human being.  He not only extended me a humanitarian approach but recommended the office of the advocate general to provide an amicus curiae in the case through the High Court. But nothing came of it.  

There were many reports including that of T Sreesukan, superintendent of police, Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau (2009), the subcommittee of the state legislature, a three-member committee of the revenue department, and finally the report submitted on November 11, 2016, by Wayanad sub-collector Seeram Sambasiva Rao, all pointed at the forest department for misleading the forest tribunal in cooking up a faulty verdict. 

Sreesukan recommended action against the tainted forest officials whereas Rao said the judgement of the tribunal after the ‘claimed visit’ to the spot was improper as the boundaries of the vested land and the land of George were entirely different which could have been easily identified by the judge during the spot visit.   

“Either the forest department officials had misled the judge or the judge had failed to examine the right land in the right way,” the report said.  All the reports said the forest authorities willfully tried to mislead the court, mislead the forest minister, and mislead the state legislature, producing fabricated evidence. 

The 50-page report of Rao categorically explained how the forest department officials fabricated evidence and manipulated records to prove the land was vested in 1977: “The forest tribunal was not properly assisted by the forest department,” the report said.

The vigilance report submitted in 2009 found there was deliberate manipulation of records by the forest department and recommended action against the officials.

Despite all these reports gathering dust, James is still on the street with his crusade for justice with ‘full faith’ in the law of the land.